


no digas que quiero (don't say i do)

by Wordsintothevoid



Series: of longing and fulfillment [1]
Category: Gran Hotel (TV)
Genre: Angst, Diego and Alicia's Wedding, Episode: Season 1 Episode 15, F/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, One Shot, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:06:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26591122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordsintothevoid/pseuds/Wordsintothevoid
Summary: Alicia is getting married to Diego. An exploration of grief, honesty, and losing the person you love most in the world.
Relationships: Julio Olmedo/Alicia Alarcón
Series: of longing and fulfillment [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942336
Comments: 7
Kudos: 16





	no digas que quiero (don't say i do)

Julio can’t stand it. The way Alicia’s looking at him, radiant in her wedding dress, with anger in her eyes. The unfairness that crushes his chest, how much he hates this place, how powerless he feels.

All he asked for was Cristina. That’s it. Just his sister who made mud pies with him and helped him with his schoolwork. He wanted to save the girl who was so excited about life, about everything. She’s drowning in earth now, skull crushed, buried in an unmarked grave in the woods that he had to dig with his own hands.

These people took her from him. He’s sick to death of the lies, the theft, the evil that seems to flash behind everyone’s proper expression. This hotel is full of monsters with beautiful faces.

But Alicia. Brilliant, beautiful Alicia who trusts him even when she shouldn’t, who makes him feel like a man worthy of her. He would gladly ruin the Alárcon family, drop a match on the spilled gasoline of their sins and walk away. But not her, never her.

Justice for Cristina. Love for Alicia. Merciless gods that he’s sacrificed everything for but he can’t serve one without losing the other.

“It’s not too late,” he pleads with her. And he hopes she hears everything unspoken. _I love you. I would give you everything I have and the whole world beside. Please, I hate this place, please let me keep you safe._

She pulls her veil over his face, shaking her head, and then she’s not Alicia anymore. She’s Diego’s bride, his pretty, perfect wife who will support Diego as he crushes anyone who is unlucky enough to get in his way. Julio tries to breathe through his anguish. She belongs to Diego now. Not him. Never him.

Alicia descends the stairs, without a second glance.

Julio goes to the taven and punches a man just because he can and when the man’s fist connects with his cheekbone, it feels right. Like justice. As he throws himself into the fight, he imagines his opponent as Cristina’s killer, as Diego, as everything wrong with this terrible place. 

The pain steals the breath out of him and his will to continue. A final blow connects with his face and he crashes to the ground, bleeding and so, so tired. _Alicia_ , he thinks and he’s never been so relieved to fall unconscious.

Alicia stands in her own wedding, dressed in white. She can’t feel her feet, wonders if she’s still holding her bouquet. Her mind is full of the taste of Julio’s lips, the breeze on the balcony where she felt like her world was expanding, pulling him close on a cliffside, hands tugging at his lapels.

Her mother sits behind her, back straight, hat tilted perfectly, her beaded necklace hanging _just so_. All she has to do is say the word and Alicia jumps, anxious to be loved, to be the good daughter, to live up to Sofía’s example. She said marry Diego and here Alicia is, even after all the lies and heartbreak.

She distantly hears the priest asking Diego to vow his fidelity and Diego says yes with such smoothness, Alicia hysterically wonders if he oils his words before he speaks. Murder with a gold knife, a beloved sister lying dead, and lies upon lies. There’s nothing sure around her and Alicia wonders if there’s anyone in the whole world she can trust. _Julio_ , she begs in her mind. Her anger at him for suspecting Sofía burned like a flare: quick, vicious, and temporary. She understands his suspicions, even admires his determination to find out the truth, as ugly and awful as it may be.She desperately wishes she could say he’s never lied to her but he still feels like her fixed point in all this chaos. 

Alicia glances at Diego and wonders at how different the two men are. Diego looks her in the eyes, says whatever she wants to hear, and she pretends she doesn’t hear the undercurrent of menace. Julio lays his cards on the table, every lie told only to protect the people he cares about, and his sincerity is unmistakable.

She’s getting married to the wrong man. For just a moment, Alicia sees it: the train ride with Julio, holding hands where no one can see, buying a small house by the sea where no one can ever find them, waking up in the morning in a bed splashed in golden sunlight and pressing kisses to the curve of his jaw until he wakes and sees her, his smile just as warm as the light on her skin.

“Alicia?” Diego asks. He’s asking her to promise. Alicia can feel her mother’s eyes on her back, Sofía’s, Diego’s.

_It’s not too late until you say I do_ , Julio whispers in her mind.

“I do,” she says and wonders if anyone can hear her heart break.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i swear i will fill this ship tag all by myself if I have to. please, please watch Gran Hotel on netflix.


End file.
